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When it comes to starting a blog, there’s a lot of advice out there, some of it conflicting. Many people have different ideas of how you should start and what you need to get when you first start out. As someone who’s started many blogs over the years, I wanted to give you a sense of what’s worth investing in when starting a blog. Because to start a blog off on the right foot, you are going to need to invest some money, but there are some things that just aren’t worth investing in yet when you’re first starting out. Here are all the different places you should put your money.
Where to invest when starting your blog
There are so many things you can invest in when starting your blog, so let’s touch on the most important things.
Domain
It’s important to buy your own domain. Many hosting companies throw it in for free when you purchase hosting, but I would recommend keeping your domain separate from your hosting. That way, it’s super easy if you ever want to switch hosts. Personally, I use Namecheap to buy all of my domains.
Now, when it comes to buying your domain, you’ll have options depending on what you want your actual domain to be. Always be sure to buy a .com domain. This is what most people know, and it’s going to make your life easier. These domains typically cost $10-15. However, if you want a premium domain, then it’s going to cost way more money. Premium domains are those that are one to two popular, common words, and they’re expensive. These range anywhere from $200 all the way up to $100K+. A premium domain can be nice, but I wouldn’t recommend spending too much on it.
Hosting
To start off, one of the best things you can do to set up your blog for success is buying hosting for it yourself. I don’t recommend using builders like Wix to build your blog. It’s ultimately more expensive, it’s going to kill you on SEO, and you don’t own your blog in the same way. So, be sure to pay directly for hosting.
Please, please don’t skimp on hosting. Your hosting is so important. You never want your site to randomly go down. I get that Bluehost has a shiny introduction offer that’s really cheap. However, the reason they’re so cheap is that they’re not very good. I’ve heard horror stories of bloggers completely losing their site, and Bluehost being unable to tell them why. In fact, avoid all companies with excessively low introductory offers. If you’re looking for a good middle ground, there’s Siteground. If you’re looking to upgrade a bit (which I would recommend), I personally use Dreamhost.
Theme
Since you’re buying your own domain and hosting, WordPress is where you want to be. I mean, it’s where you want to be anyway, but it’s definitely where you end up when you’re buying your domain and hosting. When you build a WordPress site, you need a theme. Your theme is basically the visual design and front-facing function of your blog. It decides what your blog looks like and what it does. This means your theme is incredibly important.
It’s worth investing in a functional, beautiful theme that does what it needs to do. If you’re a little more tech-savvy, I recommend 17th Avenue Designs. They use Genesis themes, and they’re primarily what I use on my blogs. Another good option is Kadence themes, and I use Restored 316 and Hello You Designs for that. Kadence themes are a little easier for people with fewer technical skills, and they’re beautiful too. Despite what people will tell you, you can’t really go wrong with either. If you decide not to go with either of these options, be sure any theme you use is mobile responsive.
Legal pages
Make sure your blog is legal! This is especially true if you’re using Google Analytics or putting affiliate links in your blogs. It’s typically against a company’s terms of service not to have the proper legal pages if you’re working with them. This is absolutely true for Google Analytics and Amazon. You need to have great legal pages that cover you in case something goes wrong and show you’re doing everything legally. At a minimum, I recommend a privacy policy, a disclaimer, and terms and conditions.
What’s worth investing in later
Those are really the only four things you need to invest in to have a good blog. However, there are many things that will make your life easier or make your blog better that might be worth investing in now, depending on your budget.
The most important thing, and the first thing I recommend you invest in, is an email service provider so you can start your email list. You can technically do this for free with a Convertkit free account, but you can’t send automatic lead magnets with their free, so it’s probably worth waiting until you can invest. I use Flodesk.
Next comes things like Tailwind and Planoly, which help you automate your social media. This can make your life way easier because you can batch everything out ahead of time, which is essential if you’re strapped for time.
There are also several paid plugins that do amazing things. Askimet saves me sanity when it comes to weeding out spam comments. WP Tasty has an amazing plugin for automatically linking keywords, which is great for affiliate income. Pretty Links is another I hear a lot about. It’s also worth investing in an image compressor and caching plugin.
Eventually, you might want to invest in branding as well. This isn’t something I recommend doing at first. Making a logo in Canva is easy enough. (Canva Pro is another good later-on investment, by the way. It makes it easy to create graphics.) You don’t need fancy branding when you’re just starting out, but you’ll probably want to create a more coherent and comprehensive brand eventually.
Premium stock photos are also worth investing in once you have the money too. I’ve heard good things about Deposit Photos, which has a huge sale once or twice a year. I personally use Style Stock Society.
With so many options out there and so much different information, it can be a struggle to figure out what to invest in when starting a blog. But really, you just need a good domain, reliable hosting, and a beautiful, functional theme for your legal blog. Everything else is negotiable or can wait. I wouldn’t recommend investing too heavily into courses unless they’re really specific to something you want to do. There are a lot of bad courses out there, and it’s easy to get burned.
Got questions? I’m happy to answer! Drop them below!
